Tell Them
by NotAMuggleMiss
Summary: "Perhaps she could blame her poor judgement on the war. They had met in the rubble and dust that was the aftermath of the Battle of Hogwarts, after all." UEA PP/CC


Written for Sing-Me-A-Rare Volume 3. Much love to my Alpha/Beta, I_was_BOTWP.

Song Prompt - Impossible, James Arthur

Work Text:

* * *

"I remember years ago  
Someone told me I should take  
Caution when it comes to love,  
I did"

Betrayal was not an emotion Pansy Parkinson was accustomed to feeling. While this idea might have come as a shock to those around her, considering how often the people in her life let her down, Pansy would have been the first to argue that to feel betrayed by someone, she would have had to trust them in the first place. She didn't trust others easily. She had been taught from a young age to be cautious in her relationships, especially when it came to love. Truthfully, she hadn't been certain she was even capable of trust until relatively recently. Yet, she had learned to trust; the irony of it being completely misplaced did not escape her now, but she had been careless. She was all too aware that the pain she was experiencing was the result of her own shortcomings, her inability to control her own stupid feelings.

Perhaps she could blame her poor judgement on the war. They had met in the rubble and dust that was the aftermath of the Battle of Hogwarts, after all.

Cho Chang had been nothing more than another dirty, tired face straggling about the castle looking for a place to rest. Seeing as she was a former Ravenclaw, whose tower dormitories had been nearly completely destroyed in the battle, she had wandered down toward the dungeons, where the castle seemed to have remained mostly undisturbed, in search of a bed. Pansy's manners had taken over and she had invited the older girl back to the Slytherin dormitory upon seeing her exhausted face in the hall. She hadn't truly expected her to accept, but she had, and after a shower and a borrowed change of clothes, Cho had fallen asleep quickly in Daphne's empty bed. Pansy had stared at the canopy of her own bed, deep in thought for what seemed an eternity, before drifting off herself.

She hadn't expected to be woken by nightmare-induced screams only a few hours later. The Slytherin girls had been no strangers to nightmares, and Pansy had found herself padding over to the next bed in the dark in hopes of offering some comfort, though she hardly knew the girl. Stroking Cho's hair had calmed her hysteria and as she shifted back into calmer sleep, Pansy had drifted off beside her. When they had woken, snuggled together in a tangle of limbs that was confusing but not entirely unpleasant, Cho had kissed her. It had been mid-afternoon on the day after the defeat of Voldemort and while the rest of the world had slowly woken to the task of rebuilding, the two young women ensconced in the Slytherin dormitories had explored each other's bodies.

Looking back, Pansy could see that had been the moment she had fallen. That had been her first mistake.

Pansy stood staring at the closed door of her flat, lost in her memories. The two years that had passed since the war had been a blur of new experiences, full of the strange kind of happiness that comes with a first love that runs deep. She had always known, on some level, that she was attracted to women in a way no man had ever caught her interest, but experiencing it for herself as more than a hypothetical and forbidden thought had changed her. She had, of course, grown up with the usual set of pureblood rules and demands. Even with her father in Azkaban, her mother was determined to send her on the prescribed path to becoming a pureblood wife. But there was something liberating about living authentically, even if it was only in the privacy of her own flat. After months of deliberating, she had felt she was ready to embrace this in her public life as well. Over the past fortnight, she had found herself wanting to shout her happiness on the rooftops. It was why she had invited Cho over this very afternoon - she had planned to take her on a very public date, pureblood expectations be damned.

Cho had been her pillar of strength when Pansy, who had always been solid steel in the face of fire, had faltered in the aftermath of the war. As everything changed around her, as the world she knew was pulled out from under her feet, as her increasing depression had brought her knees, Pansy had latched onto Cho as though she were the last stone in a pool of molten metal that was threatening to wash her away. She was everything. Cho had taught her how to let go, how to laugh, how to love.

Then Cho had flung words at her that hit like a Bombarda.

Betrothed.

Family expectations.

Honour.

This is Goodbye.

Pansy had not even managed to absorb Cho's clearly rehearsed speech, only the words that meant her heart was breaking in two. She closed her eyes, remembering against her will.

"You knew!" she had shouted. "All this time, you knew this was coming! Why would you lead me on? How could you let this go? What about us?"

Cho had cocked her head to the side, studying her.

"Well, we had fun, didn't we? Two years would have been a long time to be alone…"

And that was when the two broken halves of Pansy's heart had shattered like a mirror, reflecting her pain in every direction over and over again. Cho's effortless dismissal made it all too clear that Pansy had misjudged the depth of the other girl's feelings. Pansy had imagined forever. Somewhere in the haze of soft words and promises, in the passion of flushed faces and sweaty bodies, she had dared to hope that her current reality would be impossible. That had been her second mistake.

And now Cho was gone.

Abruptly, Pansy shook herself and turned away from the door. She noted absently through the large balcony doors that the sun was rising. The view of the sunrise from the 12th floor had been one of the selling points of her flat, but it brought her no joy this morning.

She walked over to her desk in the corner and scribbled hastily on a scrap of parchment. Clenching it in her fist she made her way to the door and stepped out into the glowing orange hues of the early light of day. She leaned over the railing to stare at the pavement below for what felt like ages. She stood upright and glanced down at the words on the slip in her hand.

Tell them I was happy

She folded it carefully in two and tucked it into the left pocket of her robes. Pansy took a deep, careful breath and closed her eyes...


End file.
